Jane had come in part to remind him that they were meant to dine that night; she had broken up her own party because there was to be a larger one at a friend’s house. Would they ride over together? she asked. He said of course, promising to fetch her at quarter past eight.
Though his visit to Bedlam was some ways off, something had been nagging at him since his last trip. When Jane and Lancelot were gone he composed a wire to Dr. Hansel, his friend at the asylum.
Wondering if you have patient Belmont STOP alternatively Irvington STOP if so would like interview STOP warm regards STOP Lenox
He sent this out by a footman. He was thinking of the man who had approached him at the very end of his last visit, claiming to be falsely imprisoned—Irvington, he had called himself, before the guard called him Belmont.
It hadn’t sat well with Lenox all week, and he was glad to have gotten the wire off. That done, he sat down and faithfully recorded the events of the day both for his own edification and to keep the facts straight in his mind. The Duke might be finished with the case, but he was not.
Graham returned just before six. “Hello, sir,” he said.
“There you are. I was wondering.”
“I have been searching for Maggie McNeal, sir, but unfortunately without luck.”
Lenox frowned. It was very rare for Graham to fail. “No sign of her?”
“None, sir. Even within the household she is not remembered except perhaps hazily—that perhaps there was a Margaret employed there for a week or two some time ago. Yet it seems implausible that she should have had a more formal name below stairs than above.”
“That is bizarre.”
“I thought so, too, sir.”
Lenox pondered this. There were often loose ends in his cases, false trails. He didn’t like this one. “Thank you, Graham,” he said. “I wondered if you wanted to tackle another job for me over the weekend. No rush.”
“What is that, sir?”
Lenox smiled. “Don’t get too excited. It is the churchyards of Kent I have in mind.”
Soon the two were upstairs in their more traditional roles, Lenox shaving, Graham pressing his evening suit, a distracted chatter passing between them. By half past seven Lenox was dressed and his cheeks patted with sandalwood—a gentleman of London town.
Downstairs, he saw that a reply from Hansel had already arrived.
Odd you mention Belmont STOP transferred by family St Cs Edbrgh this week STOP no record Irv now or past STOP welcome any time STOP Hansel
Lenox was used to the doctor’s economical style. He frowned as he read this over a second time. So that dark-eyed, dark-haired man, so urgent in his entreaties, had been pulled out of Bedlam after confiding in Lenox.
He would go to the asylum soon if he could.
But for now his duty was next door. On his way out he passed Lancelot and Mrs. Huggins playing checkers intently over an enormous supper. (Lancelot sat cross-legged on the floor across from the housekeeper, about eye level with the board, chin resting on his hand. He reported that she had won thirty-seven times in a row, but he had hopes of breaking through soon, and Lenox felt a quick involuntary burst of affection.) He decided to leave without even asking about Mr. Templeton, or the long shot in the fifth race.
He picked up Lady Jane, who was dressed in a lovely rose-colored gown with a blue taffeta shrug. Her hair was whipped into a high pile of curls.
“You look lovely, Your Ladyship,” said Lenox, bowing.
“And you, Mr. Lenox,” she said, curtsying.
Soon his carriage was on its way, headed toward the home of Mr. and Mrs. Caliban Edwards. Cal and his wife, Emily, lived in a rather shabby house near Bloomsbury. It was the envy of all their friends. Cal was the son of a very famous explorer and an equally famous beauty, she the daughter of two houses whose lineage dated to the Norman invasion.
They didn’t have a penny between them. Cal rubbed along as a writer—a novel and some stories, the occasional tale of travel. Nevertheless, there was no house Lenox knew that was more full of happiness or of, because his father was always climbing some Himalaya or wading some Nile, interesting artifacts. A crocodile with its jaw wide open greeted you in the hallway. A walking stick carved with the symbols of the natives of America—it wouldn’t have been out of place in Bergson’s shop—was propped against it. The walls were covered with prints from Mr. Audubon’s beautifully colorful book about birds. They had all 435 in frames, given them by the artist, and rotated the birds constantly; Audubon himself had been a dedicated visitor here until his death, two years before.
They dined cheaply but happily, all their friends having brought along additional viands and drinks, Lady Jane herself providing an excellent punch, sent over earlier in the day, which tasted of raspberries.
Lenox was seated next to Effie Somers—and the time flew away, as if it were on wings.
After dinner the men and women divided. Cal’s father, a noble soul with a finely shaped head and a great coiffed sweep of gray hair, briefly back in London before he left for the interior of Africa, spent a great deal of time asking Lenox about his methods and his ideas.
At the end of it he offered a word of oblique praise. “They called me mad, too, you know,” he said. “Perhaps they still do. I wouldn’t trade a lifetime over again in the House of Lords for a single day of doing what I loved.”
The two sexes rejoined in the drawing room, and Lenox moved into other conversations. But he was heartened by that one: He did love his work.
And he was improving, surely he was improving—or he was trying to improve, at least, which must matter in its own right.
He found Lady Jane and Effie Somers together on a couch as the hour neared midnight. “You look as if you’ve been brooding,” said Lady Jane.
They were in the center of the small, comfortable drawing room, which was populated by a mix of generations, aging Explorers Club members and young society sorts.
“Only a bit.”
“What about?” asked Miss Somers, accepting a glass of champagne from a footman with a graceful nod.
“Shakespeare!” said Lenox, and grinned. “How dull.”
“Did you know he minded the horses for the theatergoers?” Effie said.
“I was always told he wrote the plays,” Jane replied. “But then they never educate girls.”
Her friend smiled, and in that instant Lenox almost loved her. “No, it was his first job in the business. When he was new in London.”
“Was it!”
“I like to think of him standing there. He must have heard the laughs and groans from inside the theater and wondered what was prompting them.”
“Every long silence,” said Lenox.
“Exactly,” she said.
Lady Jane excused herself. “Will you take care of Miss Somers for a moment?” she asked. “I have to ask Cal something.”
Her motive in leaving them alone was transparent enough that when she had gone across the room, there was a slight humorous tension in the candid look Lenox and Effie Somers exchanged.
She wore a summer dress, yellow and white. Around her neck was a gold chain with a gold ring on it. She had pinned her thick golden-chestnut hair up, and Lenox could imagine, from the trace of scent he had caught when he said hello, what it would be like to stand before her as she unfurled it just for him.
A painful absence glanced through his insides. He thought, unbidden, how he wanted someone to love.
“How are you finding your return from America to England?” he asked.
“When I was last there everyone was reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin. But I observe that it has followed me here.”
“I haven’t read it.”
“No? It is quite wrenching. All of the people on the right side of things—the abolitionists—have high hopes for it.”
“Did you not meet anyone on the wrong side of things?” Lenox asked.
She looked at him curiously. “You are not asking because you … you disagree with me?” she said.
“Never in life.”
“Oh! Good. I did, though, to answer your question. The population is quite mixed. The pragmatists in Newport, where we passed last summer, have set a target date of 1900. The last slave shall be freed then, they say. Others are afire for it to happen tomorrow.”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know—truly I don’t.”
“My second cousin went there, on my mother’s side,” said Lenox. “Fourth son. He is in South Carolina. He has land, and at least ten slaves. A very amiable person as I recall him—and yet I cannot imagine his life, how he justifies it in his mind! It beggars belief.”
Miss Somers glanced across the room, and her hand went to her necklace nervously. “Mr. Lenox,” she said quietly, touching her necklace, “may I confide in you?”
“Of course,” he replied, surprised.
He did not know if it was going to be on the subject of slavery—did she need money?—but instead she said, “I am engaged to be married.”
“Are you! My heartfelt congratulations. The chap is very fortunate, very.”
“It is a secret. He lives in Philadelphia. My mother and father will—it is probably only half a step too far to say that they will disown me if I become an American, so we are waiting until he is on firmer footing there. He owns a printing shop for which he has high hopes.”
“Like Franklin. I am sorry that you should be separated, though,” said Lenox.
“I’m telling you this because Jane, in her foolish kindness—”
He put up a hand. “Miss Somers, say nothing more. I understand.”
She looked at him gratefully. “Thank you, Mr. Lenox. You are a gentleman.”
He smiled. “If your fellow has a printing shop, I imagine that means he is able to send you very handsome letters even from across the sea.”
They talked quietly for some time, and Lenox, after the initial surprise and a pang of disappointment, found that his sadness was not attached to the particular personage of Miss Effie Somers, even with her beautiful hair. It was attached to the idea of a woman who might love him and give him children.
He had—in other words—learned something of himself that evening. That could never be all bad.
When he returned home it was to find the final edition of the late newspaper on his step. He picked it up and read its lead headline.
Duke of Dorset Released Home
Servant’s death ruled self-inflicted
Coroner returns verdict of misadventure